P review ECF 44th ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
All together again We publish the welcome speech by ECF (European Caravan Federation) President, Hermann Pfaff, at the 44th Annual General Meeting held on 20 May 2022 in Ljubljana
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ixty years have passed since the ECF was founded. The ECF celebrated this important anniversary during its 44th Annual General Meeting. This is a strange period for the caravan industry: production was hit hard during the pandemic, but then the European RV market grew a lot. Now it has to face complex problems: the war in Ukraine, inflation and the supply chain crisis. All this, and more, is covered in the opening speech of the conference, delivered by Hermann Pfaff, chairman of the ECF. “Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen, it is with great pleasure that I open today the 44th Annual General Meeting of the European Caravan Federation. I am delighted to welcome so many of you here in Slovenia’s beautiful capital Ljubljana. Thank you for coming. That so many of you have travelled long distances to be here just shows the great interest in and the importance of the ECF. Before I begin, let me thank our host. Dear Sonja (ed: Sonja Gole, managing director of Adria Mobil), many thanks for hosting this ECF conference here
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in Ljubljana. [...] I welcome all ECF Member Associations and the ECF associate Members. Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of the ECF Board I welcome a new full Member of the ECF. It is the Austrian dealer association ÖCHV: “Österreichischer Caravan Handels- Verband”, represented today by its chairman, Mr. Thomas Neugebauer. Dear Mr. Neugebauer, the ÖCHV is the 14th national member association. We are proud to count you and your association among the European Caravan Family. Welcome! Finally, let me welcome our friends from other associations and our guests from the press & media. Today, this is the first regular ECF conference since Stockholm in 2019. The 2020 ECF Annual General Meeting was held in Düsseldorf as a short and consensual “working meeting” of the member associations. Last year, again in Düsseldorf, a shortened version took place, but the MELVI meetings fell victim to Corona. 2020 went down in history as an extraordinary year. The coronavirus has left virtually no industry unharmed,
and the caravanning industry was no exception. However, our advantage was that during a pandemic caravanning is one of the safest ways to go on holiday, and the interest in our products grew enormously. Production was hit hard by the pandemic. Some European markets were hit stronger than others. However, thanks to strong sales of pre-owned vehicles and a remarkable influx of new customers, 2020 and 2021 ended both with European record registrations. Caravanning is all the rage in Europe. The European market for recreational vehicles registered a plus of 10 percent last year. With approx. 260,000 vehicles, new registrations of motor caravans and caravans achieved the best result in their history. With few exceptions, almost all national markets were up. 2021 was an ambiguous year: record demand, full order books but also intensifying supply bottlenecks. Increasing production problems, particularly in the second half of the year. A frustrating situation for manufacturers, trade partners and customers.
